That's pretty good actually; whether factually true or not (the number 9 seemed a little fudged at the bottom loop, as did 7). That said, there is probably some seed of truth in it.

This thread reminded me of a series of programmes the BBC did on Radio 4 a couple of years back about numbers, looking at some of the most important numbers and their significance in mathematics, science, and nature; including 0, 1, π, e, the golden ratio (~ 1.618), and ∞. If you're in the UK it might be worth a look up (people outside the UK may be able to get the series on the BBC World site).

This thread reminded me of a series of programmes the BBC did on Radio 4 a couple of years back about numbers, looking at some of the most important numbers and their significance in mathematics, science, and nature; including 0, 1, π, e, the golden ratio (~ 1.618), and ∞. If you're in the UK it might be worth a look up (people outside the UK may be able to get the series on the BBC World site).

--ETA: Largest Prime Number now known is Mersenne prime, , a 12,978,189 digit number
The Second Series (From 2003) states it as, 4,053,900 digits long. There were 39 known Mersenne Primes in Oct, 2003, there are now at least 46 known, all since 1996 discovered by GIMPS

<SideTrack>
GIMPS at 47 TeraFlops the 5th largest distributed computing supercomputer, similar to folding@home- the fastest "computer" in the world at 8.1 PetaFlops, and SETI@Home 528 TeraFlops. By comparison, the fastest "standalone" Supercomputer as of 11/2008, IBM's Roadrunner is 1.1 Petaflops.
</SideTrack>

Ah yes, that was the series. I recall the first series first time around on Radio 4; I don't think I've had a listen to all of series 2. I also got it wrong slightly, 1 isn't in the first series, but i (or j to us EEs) is. Nice to see it is still accessible so I can listen again. I assume you can listen outside of the UK?

--ETA: Largest Prime Number now known is Mersenne prime, , a 12,978,189 digit number
The Second Series (From 2003) states it as, 4,053,900 digits long. There were 39 known Mersenne Primes in Oct, 2003, there are now at least 46 known, all since 1996 discovered by GIMPS

<SideTrack>
GIMPS at 47 TeraFlops the 5th largest distributed computing supercomputer, similar to folding@home- the fastest "computer" in the world at 8.1 PetaFlops, and SETI@Home 528 TeraFlops. By comparison, the fastest "standalone" Supercomputer as of 11/2008, IBM's Roadrunner is 1.1 Petaflops.
</SideTrack>

Click to expand...

That's not bad for a standalone. The biggest problem is an OS that can manage efficiently such power and resources.